The year is winding down. Many companies are on the knife's edge caught between the past and the next era. There's a palpable sense of change in the wind. At times like these this column strives for a short series of provocative views, laying them there for takers or casual observers like so many coins left on a dusty paperback.

Chief Talent Officer: Shouldn't we have one? Dealing with people who tip the scale between success and failure in performance and sales has never been more important. Yet the farm team's clubhouse is shuttered, colleges are turning out fewer candidates for either side of our organizational chart and fewer ascending stars are being discovered. Just try to hire a News person, male or female. Unless we supplant the traditional practices of post consolidation talent tolerance for talent celebration, we'll miss the last train.

Maybe these are the "good old days." Bliss may be in the age of being alive. Why do people regard a period as trying as the last five years as years lost from our lives when beyond question, many of us have done our finest work under the most difficult of circumstances, making them the most interesting of our career? Why do we think of history as "in the past" and forget we're actually making it?

The courage of a strategist: war is a soldier's business. Business wars are a leader's destiny. Current times may seem a choice of misery...an option of difficulties. But generals seldom resign in war and leaders (good ones at least) cannot resign their burden of inspiration and exemplary mentorship. Leaders come in all shapes and sizes; some lack bright colors but have a warrior's heart. As the next year approaches there is but one certainty: without better leadership, you can't be better.

Campaigns are won by superior will power: the only crime beyond redemption is the absence of will power and the intrepid determination to do something someone else isn't willing to do. I know a group executive who has all the tools but his most conspicuous limitation is his taciturnity.  Some may be over impressed by what they sense is enigmatic greatness. Others  simply remain at arm's length as outliers, never beckoned into the inner sanctum. This leader's will-power is ever-present but seldom fully displayed to his staff. The building is enveloped by potential.

What would Churchill do? One of the most fundamental principles of crisis leadership which Churchill got profoundly right came with his belief that there must be action, even if not always useful. There must be successes, even if overstated. There must be glory, even if underserved. He was always creating 'finest hours' and if one was not immediately available, his impulse was to manufacture one.